Another 100% Raw Vegan Success

I stumbled on your blog about a week ago now, and I spent the next couple of hours reading reading reading, particularly the letters and posts about former vegans (funny how the ex and soon-to-be-ex vegan community has embraced your blog!). I spent about 14 years not eating meat. I had a long passionate love affair with the veg lifestyle that culminated in three years of raw veganism, and even a year of 80-10-10 (a la Durianrider, the Vegan Menace). Fruity Land wasn’t good to me, but by far the worst health I experienced in all my life was during my cooked vegan years, when I strongly believe that I was headed on the road to diabetes (not to mention the 30 pounds of weight I put on, the constant need to sleep, and my flat and joyless emotional state).

I reintroduced animal products last fall, but didn’t begin eating them with any regularity until just recently, when I put myself on a 30 day trial of paleo eating. I have been documenting my progress in detail so far on my own website (lots of colorful pictures included) and I thought your you and readers might like to follow along as I chart these new waters:

Wishing you much luck on your food journey, and keep up all the good work,

Heather

Well, what can I say? Getting a clue yet as to why I do as I do?

Question is, how long is it going to take Adrienne D to become a genuine human animal and engage her own mind? (If you want an idea of how the Religion of Raw Veganism works, browse that post and comments.)

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Comments

I’m not a fan of hers. She is consuming 100+ grams of carbohydrates in each shake and reacted poorly when told that shakes weren’t very primal in the MDA forums. Sure she’s an ex-vegan eating meat but to say that her diet is something that will work for insulin resistant folks is a long shot.

Her “paleo” experiment isn’t very paleo and its a shame she tries to brand herself as something she is not.

Have patience is always my take. She has still to find what works for her so everyone should lighten up. Consider she came her maybe for sensible encouragement rather than something else. Maybe she’s not getting what she wants & needs.

You are right in that a human can not survive without salt. Its an essential nutrient. However, its a rarity where someone needs to add salt to their diet. And, if one finds out that they do then they simply need to add some sea salt to their food.

99.9% of the population needs to worry about decreasing their salt intake. I would say that 99.9% of the primal community who have been primal for a few months or more are golden. Just a guess based on being heavily involved for 13 months now.

Thanks for sparking discussion Heather. Your story fits in perfectly with those of us that just want to be left the hell alone to find what works for ourselves.

I think some here are going to come off on the surface as True Believers, but the deeper truth is that many are basing comments on more than just weight loss, weight gain, and blood sugar. Other factors like inflammation, oxidation, hormones, and organ function may be affected by that level of sugar intake, and at a subclinical level for possibly a very long time. I think having patience with comments is valuable here.

I was thinking the same. Crazy 4 banana + blueberries shakes would be enough to send me sleeping. Plus she is doing corn and without wanting to be a Paleo purist, I have to say that it AIN”T paleo.

She is a beginner I suppose. but I am hoping that not that many people will do the crazy shakes + fruit on a daily basis. I am thinking fatty liver syndrome…. but then again, moving way from she was eating before or from a SAD is enough of an improvement as it is.

Carla, the way your body reacts to fruit is not how everyone’s body reacts to fruit. Don’t project.

Now, cheese gives me terrible blood sugar spikes and crashes, so I stay the heck away from it, but I do not project my inability to eat cheese onto everyone else, and lecture cheese lovers that they can’t eat it.

I am speaking from experience dealing with different clients. Some people do better on a certain amount of fruit, others who have bust their pancreas (diabetes) cannot. I also never said that you were on a SAD diet either, nor did I suggest it.

My point was that sometimes (actually quite often) people read and emulate. No thoughts as to whether this would be something good for THEM. and I have seen this time and time again with people who come to me for help and had been doing something because someone else was doing it.

I also made a point of saying that as a beginner one is bound to make “mistakes”. I often see people with diabetes or very close to it who take full glasses of organic orange juice per day because fruit is supposed to be healthy. They weren’t doing themselves any favours. Like Robb Wolf said once in one of his podcasts “you’d get organic diabetes” .

My reference to SAD and the vegan diet was simply to state that if someone was doing any of those, doing what you are doing right is a massive improvement.

If you go back and read your email, it sounds pretty snarky. If you go back and read my email, it sounds defensive. Hence the problem with communicating online – you can’t pick up on someone’s actual tone!

We are actually advocating the same message: mimicking what someone else is doing may not lead to similar results for you. Make the diet work for you, not the other way around!

And I agree, drinking big glasses of pasteurized orange juice (even if it’s organic) isn’t the way to go.

Having been in fruit land for so long, I have a unique perspective coming into paleo eating, because I know that a lot of of the fear-based messages about fruit are simply untrue, just as the fear-based messages we hear about fat from the ADA and the medical establishment are untrue.

Neither fruit nor fat is inherently bad – eating too much of both doesn’t mix well in the diet.

yep you are right. Also know that I am not a native speaker and the words I may chose may at times not project what I meant to say. if you had looked further you would have seen this: “Good point Richard. I was just worried that many people would simply follow, without considering their own reality. But Heather’s post on day 10 is spot on.
Good luck Heather”

So once again, good luck with your endeavours. I wish you all the best in your pursuit of health

Grok! Are you back on the primal bandwagon? I just went to your blog and the video is loading…

That’s awesome that you live in Hawaii by the way. I will be taking a 2 week vacation there as soon as I possibly can. When I have the money I am off. Immediately. Do you suggest a cruise? We will have to grab some lunch when I visit.

It doesn’t matter whether you are eating 30 bananas a day or are eating 100% primal. Let’s enjoy a nice lunch. What do you say? My goal is to go down there in June or July. Time will tell.

Good for you, Heather. It takes a lot of personal and intellectual courage to totally change your world view. Don’t get discouraged when people from both sides (paleo-militant and veg-militant) give you crap because nobody knows it all, there is no Grand Primal Answer. We’re all just trying to figure it out as we go. Sharing your story will help others. Best of luck on your journey.

Thanks Amy. Exactly right tone. What I left off in the previous response but should have asked is: ok, yea, but is it working for her? Are folks more concerned she’s of purity, or doing something she’s comfortable with?

Paleo is easy. People can ease into it and even my friend Mark Sisson will stipulate that 80/20 is plenty good enough.

Oh Adrienne. She has such a big heart and means well. I remember when she posted that letter. I think what we’re talking about is cognitive dissonance, right? Really really desperately wanting the belief system to be true, even when your personal experience is contradicting it so strongly.

I was told by that same crew that the weight gain I experienced was temporary, and would eventually go away, somehow. Poof. This seemed like magical thinking to me, but women in that community really wanted to believe it, even as the pounds piled on.

I say this in my trial: it doesn’t matter what you’re eating (it could be bacon or bananas), if you’re taking in way more calories than you actually need, you are going to gain weight.

Women frustrated about weight gain in that community are also told, if they have any disordered eating, undereating, binge eating, etc., at any point in their past, ever, that this is the reason for the weight gain. Doesn’t matter if it happened twenty years back. This seemed incredibly far-fetched to me, but people really bought it.

Sue, really?! I had no idea. New to paleo eating so I haven’t heard this yet. I swear reading what you wrote gives me chills.

Primal community: if they are not losing after months – it’s be patient and up your fat and calories!

Fruity community: if they are not losing after months – it’s be patient and up your fruit and calories!

These messages, I would venture to guess, are originating from folks so deeply invested in the belief system behind the diet that they can’t acknowledge it’s not working for some people.

Too many calories = too many calories. Unlimited eating, for most women, results in weight gain. Pretending this isn’t happening, or waiting for the day for it to magically fall off, while continuing to eat too much for your body type & exercise level, is an exercise in futility.

Sorry ladies, I hate to be the one to burst this bubble, but I CAN tell you that there is a definite sweet spot, where you can eat great healthy food, be satisfied, never have cravings and not get fat. Find that sweet spot and live there.

Some women lose weight easily on paleo/primal as their hunger/satiety works well. So when told to eat until satisfied they do well. Others it may not work so well and they will tend to over-eat and not see the results. Women may also have thyroid issues and this will limit their results but once properly medicated can achieve results. I can’t accept that you have to wait months and months for any weight loss unless something seriously wrong with you.

A lot women have thyroid issues, which make it much harder to lose weight.

I didn’t have thyroid issues and it was slow at first for me, only losing a lb a week or so. But I definitely would have quit if I GAINED more than a few lbs. Taking a while to lose is different from gaining…

Really? This is the first I’m hearing this. I’ve lost 40lbs. in a year. If I didn’t lose, and was gaining, I’d expect people around these parts to tell me to do something different, or at least tweak what I was doing. I would not expect them to say just keep at it as your body heals. As I said, I’ve never heard anything like that around the Paleo interwebs.

Thats because 90% of the time the person’s problem comes down to lack of fat consumption. After 40 years of OMG FAT WILL CLOG YOUR ARTERIES AND GIVE YOU HEART ATTACKS people are subconsciously scared of eating fat, and further, since foods these days have all the fat taken off/out, its not hard for a person to end up deficient in fat.

The need for fat is simply to replace the energy once provided by grains.

Short take on the issue: I’d guess that leptin resistance or damaged gut linings are the main reasons why apetite control fails on a paleo-ish diet. In those cases you might not be able to rely on apetite for caloric intake control.

And yes, paleo can give you some modest weight gain in some very specific cases, I.e. Skinny people who gain muscle.

Any significant fat gain however means that you are either doing something wrong (paleo twinkies?) or that you have some sort of apetite control or metabolic problem that means that you can’t eat calorie unrestricted.

Well the internet is certainly a small place! Hello again, Heather. I’ve seen you linked on the MDA forums, Wellness Mama, and now here! Sounds great that you are feeling better with less fruit and more meat. I tend to eat almost no fruit being diabetic, and being that I can get the same nutrients from veggies.

Speaking of 30BAD, I can guarantee you that Harley & Freelee aren’t eating 30 Bananas a Day at the moment. The floods we had here in Australia earlier in the year wiped out most of our banana crops so it would cost them each at least $50 a day to eat their 30 bananas. Due to quarantine we don’t get cheap banana imported into Australia.
$700/week food bill for the two of them – I don’t think so. Makes Paleo diets sound inexpensive in comparison.

Did you read the part where Harley says its the fault of Australians being “fruit phobic” that we have small banana crops? What a wack job. He obviously missed the bit where bananas are TROPICAL FRUIT hence growing in the TROPICS which by definition are prone to hurricanes, flooding and tropical storms. And the fact that the majority of Australia is in the temporate weather zone, anyway.

I found Adrienne waffled a lot. There were some bits about positive body image that were solid, then she interspersed them with stuff that made no sense. She talks about “the message” and “the faith” and Harley “pounding messages into our heads” then wonders why people call it a cult. She says her diet is the “healthiest” but then says it takes a strong person to stick to it and hardly anybody does long-term. It’s full of contradictions and mixed messages.

After reading what she went though, I feel bad for her. She’s swapped one eating disorder for another.

This sounds to me like her insulin response has gone sky-high. Her pancreas must be hurting so badly at this point. She could really hurt herself if she keeps that up. But of course it is her right to eat as she sees fit. I personally just hopes that she doesn’t injure herself too much.

But I am scared that people would look at symptoms like that and say that it’s natural or a detox process. Personally I would seek medical attention if I felt like that.

I finally went over and checked out the forum post from Fruity Land that Michael is linking to here. Oy. This is very disturbing to me, especially as I used to be a member of that community.

Here’s the thing: that young woman, I can almost guarantee you, will have moved on by the end of the summer and tried something else. There is a constant revolving door of newbies over there, who get really psyched up to eat that way, they try really hard for a while to make it work, it doesn’t, and eventually they drift away. This happens over and over again. Very few stick around and post long-term. Many of them, I’m sure, end up on Mark’s Daily Apple. I was shocked at the number of recovering raw vegans over there.

What I would really love to know is why nobody over there EVER suggests getting a blood test. Thyroid, insulin resistance, vitamin deficiencies, anything like that. If their diet really was so healthy you could prove it fairly simply with comprehensive bloodwork. A lot of the participants of fairly obvious candidates, but the idea is just YOU’RE NOT EATING ENOUGH FRUIT. Well, you are what you eat they say…

I watched a bunch of animal rights videos, tattooed vegan on myself and away I went. No turning back now. Wow. Just… wow.
Theres no hope for her. Better tattoo dialysis on yourself. Diabetes is your next path.

I was a raw vegan for years & naturally just kind of drifted off it & much more toward a low carb/high fat way of eating b/c of my health, and of course, the chub fact. Plus there’s how sanctimonious vegans of all stripes tend to be – especially of the raw ilk – they make you wanna eat bacon by the pound and shop at Walmart. I feel bad that they have to have posts about “accepting” a fat gain to honor your body. What nonsense – “honor” your body by feeding it what it needs. In reading Adrienne/30 Bananas instructions to “Go to a mirror, look at yourself and say the following: ‘I am AMAZING. I am a BEAUTIFUL person. I am STRONG and I can do anything I want,'” all I could think of was that old Sat. Night Live character Stuart Smalley (sp?)…”I like me! People like me! Goshdarnit, I’m a GOOD person!”

I was a vegan for a while but wasn’t very good at it. I think overweight people are always looking for the next diet, the next big thing that they can cling to, to lose weight. I was a regular SAD person who had no idea about anything vegan or raw or paleo. What i HAVE learned is that there’s something to be learned from each of these movements. From the raw folks, i’ve learned appreciation for raw, unprocessed foods. From the vegans i’ve learned about smoothies, despite the high sugar content, is the only way i can start my day. I love them. From the paleos i’ve learned not to fear meat, or the right fats, and to avoid gluten/wheat. Everyone has something good to follow, in my opinion. ANd i have read tons of books in the past few years describing all these ways of eating. You have to take what works for you and then run with it!!!

Ack! Adrienne D herself posts in the comments about when she worked in a bookstore:

“I did have a fun time hiding the only two copies of the Vegatarian Myth that came in (evil cackling) so no one would be subjected to it. oh..and so many people came in asking for carb counting pocket books because they were just diagnosed with diabetes. Sigh… I did my best though, giving a quick blurb and often writing down 80-10-10 on a paper for them to look up.”

Holy fuck. I would be totally insulted if a stranger tried to give me that book and tell me that it would cure my diabetes. Uh, hello and/or duh, my pancreas is dead, and your fruit ain’t gonna fix that. I’ve read 80-10-10 front to back, and the science just doesn’t hold up. I’m pretty sure I’d have to fire her if I were her manager, because no one working in a bookstore is qualified to treat diabetes patients.

You’re right, she does look bloated. If somebody looked like that after 15 months of paleo/primal I would think that something was awry.

But looking at her I can’t help but wonder how durianrider keeps his figure. In all probability he just cheats. If he really ate what he says he does he should be more bloated. Has anybody from the paleo crowd actually met him and can confirm his physique?

Harley does remind me of a cult leader, and I don’t think that he practices what he preaches.

But poor girl, she means so well, and she really managed to convince herself that weight is not important. But the fact remains that weight/overweight remains the most reliable indicator of a number of diseases.

I’m sorry, but these comments about Adrienne D are some of the stupid shit I’ve ever read. You guys really don’t have a fucking clue what your talking about.

This is one of the stupidest fucking threads I’ve ever seen online. You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Poking fun of a someone obviously recovering well psychologically from an eating disorder?How the fuck do you look in the mirror? What a bunch of dumb fuck asshats. Yes I’m judging you, just like you’re judging this girl. This girl has taken back control of her life, feels good and is happy. So what if she gained weight after coming off major eating disorder. That’s to be expected! Are you that fucking stupid? She eats this way because it’s helped her. Go fuck yourselves. You’re talking about her being pudgy puffy? When’s the last time any of you had enough energy to ride a bike 115K? Oh wait… you can’t, so shut the fuck up! You might have a heart attack from all that “chronic cardio.”

Pick on someone like me. I subscribed to your dumb fucking religion for two years of my life. Want to come train? I’ll blow your doors off like you’re’ tied to a stupid fucking high fat post.

There’s other comments on here so stupid they aren’t even worth addressing.

*F-word used generously to stick to the theme of #AngryDick’s blog. Love you buddy ;)*

Train at what, and what would that prove? Lance Armstrong versus Benni Magnusson – who squats more and who wins the bike race, and what does that prove?

I completed the Blue Ridge Extreme in VA (century featuring several climbs up Blue Ridge Mountains, capped with a climb up Wintergreen, 7 miles at 14%+) in 2008. Now I lift weights. I would never, ever trade even a 200lb squat for whatever you call what I had going up Wintergreen. Nor do I think of it as indicative of any real sort of “fitness”. I was skinny as hell and so I could crank up a mountain. Take me off the bike and I couldn’t do shit. Once this became apparent I ditched the hamster wheel and went looking for something else.

I respect bicyclists because I know how painful it is to excel. My dad is a nutcase but I love him and I’m not going to take a shit on what he does for fun. But spinning a gear for 115km or for 160km with 11k+ feet of climbing doesn’t really prepare you for anything other than spinning a gear for five hours. I’d rather be able to lift something heavy and walk up the mountain, two things which you can’t train on a bike.

>>”unless you are trying to keep a physique for competitive biking, is there any reason why you couldn’t train yourself TO DO BOTH ??”

if i knew a reason why or why not, i wouldn’t have used 2 question marks….from my limited experience, and at my fittest, i have been able to walk, swim, cycle and work extremely demanding jobs (involving much heavy lifting)..all of these ‘disciplines’ within the same day, on occasion (cycling to work, working 8 hour heavy shifts (lifting and walking), then cycling to the pool and knocking out 3 miles).

so, assuming i don’t want to be a competitive professional in any of these disciplines, what’s the reason i couldn’t become pretty proficient at all of them ??

>>What’s the difference between biking to work and biking 100 miles through varied terrain including very steep mountains? Or, to use the distance Grok quoted, biking 71 miles?>

actually, grok didn’t mention anything about “terrain”, and neither did i….and how do you know what terrain i had to negotiate to get to work ??

well…the terrain i used varied daily, as i varied routes for interest…i didn’t avoid hills for the sake of it, and through a very english autumn/winter, wind resistance made all the difference to how easy or difficult it was

of coure, a hundred miles, through hills and mountains is a different thing…but 70 miles, over ‘normal’ terrain is not the most difficult thing to work up to…cycling, over any other discipline i mentioned, allows for a lot of ‘free’ distance, as in free-wheeling fuelled by momentum and downhill as opposed to my swimming training (which peaked at 5 miles) in which every metre required consistent effort and complete movement…

for cycling,once you start adding time constraints and specifically seek the terrain you mention, it is a different thing entirely and i would think of that more in terms of competitive-level training

rather than answer in trick questions and riddles, why not just answer the question….

can you reach a good level of fitness through cycling (terrain, speed records aside) and also be able to lift weights to a reasonable level ?? `

Grok mentioned “training”. “Training” is not “biking to work”, it’s physical effort for the purpose of increasing fitness. You’re apparently not talking about training at all, so your question is a non-sequitur wrapped in a strawman, but for what it’s worth: yes, of course one can bike, swim, lift stuff and walk around every day. They cannot “train” at all of these things in a given day, or even in the same program, and see much result.

but unless you have insight into each person’s starting stats, then how can you quantify ‘training’

the bus stop was a minute from my house, but i chose to bike to increase my “physical effort for the purpose of increasing fitness””….i have yet to mention that, at this point, i was 4 stone overweight and so EVERYTHING that i did involved “physical effort for the purpose of increasing fitness”…..within your limited framework you can dismiss it any way you want, but i was most certainly in “training”….i trained my time down very quickly and trained my fitness so that i could arrive at work without breaking a sweat (unlike when i started)….

on one of the routes i took, there was no down hill…just a steady incline for a long period, ending in a very steep hill…

i then biked to the pool and put in more “physical effort for the purpose of increasing fitness” (and completing a sponsored swim that i had signed up for)….you don’t need to know how fast i was going, how many breaks i took, what stroke i used and what (if any) intervals i used…you just need to know that i was increasing my “physical effort for the purpose of increasing fitness”” and that within a short space of time my TRAINING allowed me to progress very rapidly

>>”They cannot “train” at all of these things in a given day, or even in the same program, and see much result.
”

if we consider training for iron-man triathlons a a “program”, are you suggesting that these athletes don’t “see much result”

I’m not even sure why you’re talking to me at this point. Sure, you can redefine training to be “anything anyone does ever” and completely ignore the context set by Grok’s post (70 miles) and my reply (100 miles), but aside from prolonging an argument you started on the internet, why bother?

No, you can’t lift to get stronger and bike 70 miles in the same program. Try it. D0n’t take my word for it. I await your results.

If someone walks up to you and says, “Why doesn’t 1+2 equal 12?”, it would be impossible to answer except “vaguely” because that person is so completely missing out on fundamental knowledge.

That’s why I’m telling you to try it. You seem completely ignorant of what it means to bike 70 miles and ” or train with weights. This is not something I can explain to you in the comments section of an internet blog. You can google popular weight training programs, popular biking programs and learn the basics and then you’ll see why your question seems absurd given the context of the thread. A context which I will repeat one last time: “Want to come train? I’ll blow your doors off like you’re’ tied to a stupid fucking high fat post.”

Of course, you probably trolling me, in which case, bravo. I suggest you use the moniker “el-obtuse”, though, as it would nicely fit the tactic.

i asked you a question based on your response…and it WAS a question…you can’t be bothered to school a fool like me, that’s fine, you shoulda told me to ‘google off’ from the start

as it is, you decided to through obtuse, and obscure, socrates references deflecting my question back at me to further establish that i was the fool

then you offered a definition of training which i used to explain that ‘training’ is a relative term

““Why doesn’t 1+2 equal 12?”, it would be impossible to answer except “vaguely” because that person is so completely missing out on fundamental knowledge.”

“You seem completely ignorant of what it means to bike 70 miles”

missing on fundamental knowledge ?? completely ignorant ??

i’ve been riding a bike since the age of 6, sometimes many miles a day…the most i’ve probably biked over the course of a day/evening is 40 miles, not for it’s own sake, jut riding around getting stoned with mates…at this point i was also a few stone overweight and was not in training….it’s because of these experiences that offer me enough insight that i can conceive of quite easily being able to train to 70 mile rides

let’s not forget, i made the distinction between general cycling and 100 miles of mountains (which i acknowledge is another world)

as for weight training ?? i aint that vain..i’m into functional training…most of my working life has been spent in warehouses, delivering heavy goods and labouring, so i build strength as a function of my job

>>”Why doesn’t 1+2 equal 12?”

there is a simple answer to that, not that you would have answered it….instead you chose to avoid direct questions and call me ignorant and obtuse….

Well, my apologies. Usually, when someone asks a question which makes no sense and then rambles on a tangent, the charitable assumption is that they’re trolling, but I suppose genuine confusion can also be the case.

Simply:

1) If you want to “blow doors off”, you have to train hard.
2) If you train hard, you will need a lot of recovery.
3) If you need a lot of recovery for one activity, you cannot also train hard at something else.
4) Thus, attempting to “blow doors off” in biking is incompatible with “blowing doors off” in weight training and hiking. You might lift to develop bike-specific strength, but you’ll be weak relative to someone who makes weights a priority, just as they will be weak relative to you on the bike.

Everything you’re talking about is irrelevant to the topic of this conversation, ie hard training. Spinning around getting stoned and working in a warehouse are totally incomparable to training for cycling and lifting. This strikes me as so fundamentally obvious that the only reasonable explanation for someone not understanding the gap is that they are trolling. I still have a hard time believing that you really don’t get it. But, ok, you win. I’m sorry for being a meany-pants.

If you want to understand this, you need to do some research and/or give it a shot.

“”I’d rather be able to lift something heavy and walk up the mountain”

this explanation “Thus, attempting to “blow doors off” in biking is incompatible with “blowing doors off” in weight training and hiking” is easy to understand…you could have answered that, rather than infer my ignorance for not arriving at such a simple conclusion

you might think that milling about on a bike with mates accounts for nothing, but it’s still 40 mile in a day without blinking..didn’t need an ounce of training to do it…so with a little training, i know that 70 miles was within reach…maybe if we hadn’t been up all night, we could have knocked out even more mileage

i think i made it quite clear that i didn’t want to get to professional competitive standard in either lifting or cycling…it was you who kept bringing it back to “hard training”

as for working in a warehouse not being anything like lifting…you’re right, no standing in front of a mirror in a ‘wifebeater’ getting off on the smell of my own (and the other lifters) stink, picking things up from in front of my feet, grunting and returning them to in front of your feet…no… ‘functional’ (as has been elucidated in more recent replies) fitness – being able to lift without injury, to move with weight, to climb with weight, to balance with weight…..i have started jobs that were way beyond me in term of effort, that had me turn to jelly before lunchtime only to have to return for another four hour of the same – 4 hours of 1 rep-to-exhaustion lifting…

eventually, strength improves, muscles are destroyed and have become stronger…i apply for overtime and am STILL able to cycle home

>>”If you want to understand this, you need to do some research and/or give it a shot.”

why, when i already have enough experience of my own, confirmed by grok’s ability to progress in both disciplines

>>”I subscribed to your dumb fucking religion for two years of my life.”

as a witness to both forums, i concur with the sentiment that ‘religious zealotry’ is just a prevalent here as 30bad…of course, on neither forum doe that account for ALL members….

these contant fruit-diabetes claims are just a fallacious as the meat-high cholesterol claims…add to that the cries of weight gain from all that fruit… as has been pointed out by heather (if anyone should need to be reminded), people can get fat over-eating on anything

and though i feel that adrienne’s case is a combination of many different things (including overeating), i absolutely concur, with grok, that she seems to be faaar happier than she was before, still has her goals in sight and has, perhaps, achieved one of the most difficult things with regard to personal empowerment – that of being happy and content with things as they are…..that doesn’t mean that progression will stop, but that happiness will exist either way, and not delayed until some goal has been achieved

far be it from me taking away the fun of sniping at these folk, from y’all

One thing you said made me wish someone would do an article exploring this topic more: What is the right amount of illness? Referring to colds and flu, most of us define illness by the symptoms we show, but the symptoms are not the illness, just visible signs of the body’s process of curing the illness. I’m thinking in particular of Swine Flu, where it caused the most problems in those with the strongest immune systems, because the stronger the immune response, the greater the respiratory problems.

In my own experience, I would get every cold, sore throat, ear infection, and anything else that was going around as a kid. One year I think I missed 20 days of school. My entire life was like that, up until age 36. Then I didn’t get a cold or flu for 2 years straight, not once. And I had changed nothing. But this was the time period when gluten-related symptoms began showing themselves. My speculation is that autoimmune issues were keeping my immune system so jacked up the entire time, regular germs couldn’t take hold. That doesn’t really make sense to me but it’s my best current guess.

Now when I hear someone say “I never get sick” I have a pit of the stomach feeling, remembering the time I never got sick, but the truth was that I was in shambles.

Isn’t this the correct response for a truly healthy person:
1) You get exposed to a certain amount of virus or bacteria
2) The germ is built to live in a healthy person, and starts up a homestead with the hope of propagating enough that the host will spread some to another host.
3) The healthy person’s watchdogs find the germ’s damage, bring evidence to the lymph areas, and the body begins building a custom army of killer cells to target that specific germ
4) The body shows symptoms of the war — mucus, fever, coughing, etc.
5) The illness ends as the body wins.

That to me sounds like a healthy person, not a damaged person. I now view not getting sick as a problem for myself. I can’t find any info on the Net answer that specific question: What is the correct amount of illness?

Paul, I second your thoughts on those who proclaim, “I never get sick.” Some people even take it so far as to say, “It’s impossible for me to get sick.” Such strong words for something that is not 100% completely within our control.

While I do believe a body able to overcome common illnesses like colds and influenza is a fairly strong body, it’s best to not allow ourselves to even approach that state.

In my personal experiences, building super immunity comes from natural medicines in herbal plants, and not necessarily in our bulk food sources. Even current domesticated vegetables have most of their medicines bred out, and hence have lost their “bitter” taste (alkaloids), so I make wild foods, mushrooms (ever research Reishi?), and herbs a necessary part of my lifestyle. I use them with intention and when called for.

I do not get sick often, in fact, by employing this strategy, I have been the healthiest as far as I can remember. I believe everyone should develop an immune boosting strategy and explore the various healing tools nature has to offer.

“When’s the last time any of you had enough energy to ride a bike 115K? Oh wait… you can’t, so shut the fuck up! You might have a heart attack from all that “chronic cardio.”

Pick on someone like me. I subscribed to your dumb fucking religion for two years of my life. Want to come train? I’ll blow your doors off like you’re’ tied to a stupid fucking high fat post.”

Again with the extreme endurance stuff which is apropos of nothing I’m ever talking about here. Hey, if you want to eat loads of sugar to then go out and burn loads of sugar be my guest, but I don’t see how it relates to a normal life of lean health and functional fitness we talk about here. And it proves nothing.

You might as well tell us that you can snort lines of coke and stay wired and alert for three days straight with no sleep.

The only real difference, to me, is that society has deemed the former “healthy” and the latter an “addiction.”

though i do admire people’s ability to push the barriers of human physical endeavour, i have other things i aspire to excel at ….it i a choice, so people are free to choose it…i’m not into the bragging about it, though

but what is functional fitness to me is different from you, is different from the next guy

i have seen you brag about and challenge people to weighlifting contests, so me feels you are a little guilty yourself…you probably passed ‘functional’ a while back…to pursue ‘greater’ gains is your choice, but it “proves nothing”

ultramarathons are not a benchmark for ‘functional’, but being able to run a few miles probably could be argued as such (certainly for that tribe who outruns its prey to exhaution)

That seems like a major mis-characterization. Boatloads of human animals are now experiencing the same thrills when realizing an average person putting in an average consistent effort can lift 300lbs off the ground. When you hang around with people that are putting this into practice, and see a 120lb mom that lives down the street lifting 300+lbs (ok she isn’t average), your concepts of what is bragging and what is the norm get redefined.

>>That seems like a major mis-characterization. Boatloads of human animals are now experiencing the same thrills when realizing an average person putting in an average consistent effort can lift 300lbs off the ground. When you hang around with people that are putting this into practice, and see a 120lb mom that lives down the street lifting 300+lbs (ok she isn’t average), your concepts of what is bragging and what is the norm get redefined.”

nope…bragging is bragging….and i have seen richard brag in much the same way as he is criticising grok for doing…aint no thing

‘functionality’ was mentioned…humans can train themselves to do many thing way above any level they’d actually need…weightlifting is one, endurance athletics is another…an average consistent effort has een many people complete the ct5k program, in this manner…many of them, using average consistent effort, extend this to marathon distances…

>>”Functionality of strength is nicely summed up by Mark Rippetoe: “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general.””

‘cept the cardio guys aint gonna be around long enough to bother

what you have quoted seams fair to say, except that the difference between strong and weak can be reached way before deadlifting 300lbs

in fact deadlifting 300lbs isn’t really a skill that will serve you very well in hand-to-hand combat….many a beefcake has been toppled by a sleight martial artist, replete with speed, balance, flexibility and fluidity

functional strength has been defined quite well in the last couple of hours…there are many other options that would be far better than deadlifting

As someone else has pointed out, I don’t think you know what you are talking about. 300# DL is not even twice my body weight of 175-180. No big deal. And the DL is like no other move in terms of engaging the whole body.

More people don’t do it probably because, like you, they have no idea what’s possible, nor. Do they understand the overall, functional benefits.

One of the points that gets ignored in the cardio/lift -heavy debate is the age context.

For middle-aged men, trying to restore/slow down the loss of T has a far greater impact on health than trying to build endurance.

Add to that the fact that as we age, we usually take on more responsibility, meaning that a couple of 45-minute sessions a week in the gym throwing iron sits better with our wives and mortgage holders than endless days cycling, hiking and tree felling.

The most vocal (and thriving) of the “fruitarians” seem to be young and unencumbered by responsibility. They have more options than the typical reader of FTA. They also have the hubris of youth.

el-bo, I don’t even know what you’re pushing here…I resistance train and train for running, not super endurance, but I do so on a low carb diet. I’ve actually improved my performance on a ‘primal’ diet vs the SAD I was on previously.

>>”el-bo, I don’t even know what you’re pushing here…I resistance train and train for running, not super endurance, but I do so on a low carb diet. I’ve actually improved my performance on a ‘primal’ diet vs the SAD I was on previously.”

not pushing anything

i’m glad that you have also been able to combine a resistance and cardio with success

and why wouldn’t you become healthier from swd to paleo ?? the question is if you would ever take that concept further by trying something radically different

How do you know radically different will help, or make a difference? My bloodwork just came back, it’s practically flawless, which I’m incredibly excited about, whereas previously I’d had moderately high cholesterol. I just don’t see how I could take it further, I’m eating nutrient dense foods, getting lots of sun, you want me to limit my diet by eating what exactly?

Also, if you weren’t pushing anything with your posts, then I honestly don’t even see the point of them, you just go on and on about training or something.

>>”How do you know radically different will help, or make a difference?”

i don’t, and neither do you

if improvement of health is important, why wouldn’t you want to see if you could take it further ?? bloodwork is only part of the picture (though i’m glad yours is good)

i’m just discussing, not pushing…if you insist i have an agenda, then how about i push for open-mindedness or experimentation in pursuit of increasing health…oh, and imploring y’all to stop moaning about cholesterol and fat fallacies, while in the same breath insisting that all high fruiters will end up with diabetes…a fallacy is a fallacy

of course, it’s up to you..grok is someone who also made great gains on paleo, then even more so by making some changes

but, this is a timely reminder to avoid posting here….you folks don’t really know how to handle outsiders that you can’t easily pigeonhole and that don’t wear any agenda on their sleeve

If you don’t know then why don’t you do the opposite, follow my diet? You can’t know if you don’t try, right? right? Holy shit when do you let up? I’ve eaten high fruit diets before, never gone raw fruit, but even then I’d get sugar highs, sugar lows, my teeth would hurt biting into an apple… I just don’t see how you can scientifically suggest that I will improve my health by eating just fruit. It’s also incredibly inefficient, calorically.

Great for Grok, I know how I feel, I know this works for me. Will eating a diet of only fruit cause my running stamina to improve immediately? Is that what your suggesting? Please quantify the gains you think I could have. What do you mean by gains anyway? Will I gain stamina, muscle mass? What exactly?

Lastly, I don’t think I could afford to eat just fruit, that shit’s damn expensive!

First off, my rant was more about picking on a girl who’s had serious emotional issues, and is now finally finding happiness in here life. I almost didn’t put the fitness line in there, because I knew everyone would glom onto that instead of the real issue.

Here’s my official and only response to all the fitness hubbub above. I’d like to define “functional fitness” in my eyes…

Yes I have endurance goals. I rarely compete. Competing doesn’t help me prove much of anything to myself, and I don’t like paying the big money. When I wake up in the morning… I want to be able to cycle to my destination, run a pickaxe through clay and rock for 8 hours, climb and saw trees apart piece by pice then drag away the debris, carry tons of rock or dirt in buckets, sometimes all of the above, cycle home or to the beach and swim for a half hour to unwind, and have the ability to do this day after day. Maybe I want to hike 15 miles of trails up a mountain for a day (maybe with a rifle and pack?), or haul elk quarters up the side of an extremely steep hillside and not feel like a train hit me the next. This is all very functional to me. That level of fitness also allows me to compete if I so feel. No I don’t deadlift in a gym, but I can lift and carry some big fuckin’ rocks without injuring myself. Gyms stink and have nothing I need, so I won’t be paying $60 a month to join one anytime soon when I can get paid a wage to do a functional workout outside on a farm with a few phone calls.

I’m not going into the “sugar” thing. That’s a whole other topic for a whole other day, but will say I also have prevalent experience sitting in a chairs for months on end at a computer (normal rat race life) barely moving more than going to the kitchen (eating “sugar”).

MoveNat is very big thing in this community (as it should be). I’m practically a walking MoveNat clinic with a side of cycling. That’s what I want to be. I guess many don’t/wouldn’t know that about me.

Way to miss the fucking point, here. The actual message was ‘pick on me, I have my eating sorted for what works for me and I’m strong. Don’t pick on a girl who’s damaged and sorting her shit out’. Typical men, you just jump all over the physical training issues. Fucking hell, part of this lifestyle, and in fact being a decent fucking human being, is looking after people who aren’t as strong as you, not get into a pissing contest about who has the best level of fitness.

Zach, I’m a recovering low-carber. Looks like you’re to big of a pussy to put yourself out there, so why don’t you shut your mouth. Interested in taking an IQ test with me? Dude’s with too much to say… you’re dime a dozen. Thanks for your three well thought out sentences on this thread. You’re a great contributor to the conversation.

Love your blog, Grok. Very eye opening, and my experience in adding more fruit over the last several months makes me feel far better than on a meat heavy diet. I find it easiest to stick with it right now for the first 2 meals. Thank you SO much for your posts and willing to put yourself out there, experiment, report your results, and do so in the face of the group think pervading most of the paleo blogs and forums.

P.S. watch out, or Mark Sisson might try to sue you for redefining “Grok on” to “eat all the fruit you care for – 150 g a minimum per meal.”

okay…this is my first time actually visiting the 30bad site. w.o.w. it makes me really sad. that’s the overarching feeling i have. it just fills me with so much compassion. i think everyone really wants to do what’s best for their health but so many of these people are still looking for an expert to tell them. after a cursory look through, i’m guessing that freelee is one of the leaders? this is what she had to say to someone who just doesn’t have enough energy to exercise: I can see why you aren’t motivated. Your blood sugar level would be constantly seesawing due to high fat intake which automatically means not enough carbs.
record scratch. this doesn’t take an expert to tell you there’s something way way wrong with that sentence.

kash-interesting is an understatement. this guy is eloquent, intelligent, and thought provoking. i LOVE the fight club reference. i’ve been watching that movie almost obsessively these past few months. as far as veganism and civilization, erim NAILS it.

Hey Heather, have you checked your blood sugar with a meter at all? I ask because you are attributing a lot of symptoms to blood sugar swings, but that’s not accurate if you haven’t seen any numbers. Subjective measurements like how you feel are great, but they only assess so much. Some more objective measurements might help you fill in the gaps. They aren’t expensive, although the strips can be if you have to use them long term.

Grok appears to have turned into Durianrider Lite. I’m glad he is happy, but I am not interested in “smashing” bikes or “pounding” fruit (and I think Lustig is right about the dangers of fructose, which are not–and never have been–the dangers of fruit, which I have always enjoyed). I also have no interest in being (or feeling like) “a rock star” (who is often high on something).

I am not orthodox paleo (by Kurt Harris’ old standard or anything put out by Cordain), and I never was, but I have really benefited from taking the initial paradigm presented by Art De Vany (who eats fruit) and running with it (literally and figuratively: yesterday I ended up running 2 miles home from work unexpectedly; I was fine with it, home early and breathing well even though I never run anything but sprints, which I haven’t done in months owing to work and weather). I am not really interested in running hundreds of miles (though I admire some of the people who do hard things like this, and there are certainly more intelligent ways of going about pushing the limits imposed by nature). I like being able to deadlift more than twice my bodyweight. I like being able to grapple with guys larger than I am for a long time (when I have time, usually once or twice a week). I like not having to train extensively every single day of my life in order to make these things happen. And I really like eating fat (animal and vegetable, though I avoid the processed oils), since my life necessarily contains (a lot) more than training, eating, and sleeping: I can’t give that much time to prepping or scoffing food.

I guess I am more interested in living like Keith Norris than Grok (not to mention Durianrider). I don’t have a problem with fruit, and I think variety is the spice of life (as Grok seems to be discovering: if he cannot have one true religion all of the time, he can cycle between them periodically, balancing “paleo” yang with some “vegan” yin; as long as he avoids neolithic agents of disease, it’s probably all good).

I was thinking about how to reply to Grok (that name no longer applies imo) and thinking what the paleo (or heck, remove the labe)l has done to me. I am not a native English speaker and feel quite inadequate debating in writing.

For me, paleo/primal means removing processed foods from diet, not overindulging in sugar and eating as ” clean” as possible.

I don’t follow any paleo bible. Meats, good fats and veggies work for me. I found that milk and I don’t agree (even raw) and fruit that is heavy on sugar makes me cranky and sleepy. So I still to the berries. Plus I really subscribe to Prof Lustig’s views of ” Sugar the bitter truth”.

As for exercising, I have a background as a professional kayaker. Many km’s were spent on the water, add weight training, running, racing, poor food choices and get full blown adrenal fatigue in my case. Playing the Diesel motor? what for? I have nothing to prove and my adrenals did not thank me for it. I am not interested.

At the end of the day, I find that I do well on heavy weight training and the occasional sprint. Mostly I spend about 2 hours per day outside with my dogs.

In my line of work I often deal with triathletes, with poor posture from hours on the bike, shot hamstrings and the like. Even ultra marathon runners who can run relatively fast but put a 15 kg bar on their shoulders and they are unable to squat. That is in my opinion ANYTHING BUT functional.

I also deal with many runners/cyclists who put in so much milleage, they end up with a spare tire around the middle from beating down that cortisol pathway. It cannot be good when you do so much work your body shifts the hormone producing priority to cortisol and adrenalin, leaving behind DHEA and the production of testosterone, progesterone, etc.

One more thing, we actually need fats for our cholesterol. After all you could say that cholesterol is the raw material for the production of vital hormones. I don’t know how living off fruits only (or mostly) could be positive.

Joseph, Maybe I am DurianRider Lite. He actually has some really good things to say if you can open your mind and get past the veganism. Your comment was a good enough, it deserves a response.

“and I think Lustig is right about the dangers of fructose, which are not–and never have been–the dangers of fruit”

Glad you can see this. Most listen to Lustig with selective hearing. “Fruit is bad. I eat berries.” A common paleo line. LMFAO! Look up the fructose content of berries my friends, and hurry! You’re liver might be in jeopardy!

I subscribe to no religion. Most probably know by now (since the links were tweeted around), but I was kicked off 30BaD a few months after I started into the fruit. Ok with me. I violated their terms and it’s their website. They can run it however they like.

I’m only trying to restore some sense to the community just like Richard. We just have different ways of going about it. Me “pounding” fruit is no different than the widely accepted slamming of huge portions of meat.

Fair enough. To my biased ear, you sound much more reasonable here than in your latest video (which struck me as an adulatory plug for Durianrider: I did not know that you were kicked out of the banana cult). I agree that some of us (on both sides of the fence) have a tendency to forget that no food guarantees perfect health. I guess I should thank you for reaching out to these folks with a message they can understand (“Here is one of our own talking like Banana Boy?! WTF?!”).

I’m not planning to go on an all-fruit diet any time soon, but I can see why someone like you might, and I appreciate that doing so is not going to cause instant neuro-degeneration, liver failure, and miserable death. (Though I hope you don’t feel like you have to eat only fruit for the rest of your days, unless you somehow end up stranded on an island and have terrible luck fishing and foraging for bugs.) So maybe you are just the smart version of Durianrider?

“Though I hope you don’t feel like you have to eat only fruit for the rest of your days, unless you somehow end up stranded on an island and have terrible luck fishing and foraging for bugs.”

Not at all. I eat non-fruit whenever I feel like it. Honestly, that’s almost almost never. Fresh ripe fruit (especially if you can get something other than low-sugar unripe flavorless grocery store stuff) is pretty much the only thing I want most of the time. I’m going to do some spear fishing this week. Since I don’t waste anything, I will be eating fish. Some raw, some cooked. If I’m stranded on an island I’ll eat up all the fruit first, or use the fruit to fuel fishing exhibitions since the chance of being unsuccessful and hungry is great 😉 Especially if you’re already weak and hungry.

“So maybe you are just the smart version of Durianrider?”

Since a great deal of the community completely closes their minds to anything he does or might say (some justified), I’m hoping I might be able to bridge that gap some. I’ve done most of this fruit journey on my own, so other than the introduction and a little guidance at the beginning, he’s had little influence in why I’ve continued to eat mostly this way. I can empathize with Harley’s frustration a little bit. This stuff is not the rocket science it’s made out to be.

So, out of context, sure, it sounds ridiculous to villainize fruit and then go on to say you eat berries. The point of all that is that some berries are very low in fructose, and high in nutrients, and they’re tasty. And also, if someone says they eat berries, that doesn’t immediately mean they eat piles of them in a sitting.

I’ve never gotten the “functional fitness” thing, I run and lift weights for two reasons (1) vanity; and (2) normal human male competitiveness.

I want to look better than the other men in the room, I want to be able to lift more weight than they can, run longer than they can, run faster than they can, and in general outdo them in every way imaginable.

I don’t see how functional fitness fits into that. I think it is one of those terms like “health” that people throw around but which do not really mean anything.

When we were 12 years old and playing sports were we motivated by a desire to be functionally fit?

Some of us are not interested in looking better than everyone or outperforming everyone (by whatever metric). Personally, I exercise because it makes me feel good. It also makes me look better (than I otherwise would), but there are definitely more attractive people out there (just as there always people who can outperform you, no matter how good you are: even the best can lose to the best on a given day). Your vanity is as incoherent as an ultimate standard as any other ultimate standard. Practically speaking, there is no obvious “reason” why all of us work out. “Functional fitness” provides an non-rigorous description (not definition) of what some of us who don’t really care about competition get from our workouts.

P.S. On a practical level, “functional fitness” for me means that when I notice chronic fatigue and/or repeated stress injuries, I back off in a big way, laying off the weights and sleeping more. I don’t push past barriers relentlessly. I try to increase my access to De Vany’s anabolic headroom (rather than wearing myself down every day in pursuit of competitive excellence).

To me functional fitness means looking forward to lifting heavy shit (furniture, AC, doors, top soil, snow, kids, whatever) without worrying about 4 days of back pain; it means being able to catch myself when I fall and not turn my ankle or break a bone; it means whacking my arm on something and not feeling any pain because the triceps absorbed it. It means little things, like opening a stubborn jar with grip alone, or being able to turn a clamp handle or a rusty nut with fingertips in a tight space. It can be insurance, providing extra lean mass to help me get through an extended hospital stay for some random future out-of-my-control reason. The benefits are endless, just give me enough time and I’ll fill this bottomless page.

If I were a firefighter, military, or police it would mean something completely different.

I can honestly say though, I’ve never wanted to look better than another guy. Maybe look like him, but not better. That feels foreign and odd just thinking about it.

Im in the same situation,these days are the worst,the sugar craving are so painful I had to ate a big lemon ice cream,but I started again today,I just fucking hate me for doing this to my body,doing this to every single cell,but I cant help it,my parents fed me that way.

Grok wrote:
> This stuff is not the rocket science it’s made out to be.

Ah, but it IS rocket science. One of these days Mr. Jimmy Moore “draggin-through la vida low carb” is going to interview one of the “low carb scientists” who will give him the perfect combination of fasting, egg festing, and supplements to enable him to reach a normal weight. The advanced formula that has been eluding him and other overweight low carbers needs to be tuned just right, and then it will finally work for them. It might take a couple Ph.D.’s to figure it out for him, but with all his interviews, he’ll find them eventually.

I actually think Jimmy should try a different dietary approach, just for the sake of experimentation. But, my hunch is that Jimmy’s metabolism is so fried from obesity and poor eating that no diet plan is going create any further weight loss. I also think he’d do a lot better on Fuhrman than McDougall; McDougall is fixated on eating starch, and in my own experience, nothing ramps up appetite like starch. I recently went back to eating some sweetpotato on gym days, and there was an instant two pound weight gain, probably glycogen and water. But, over the next couple weeks, hunger levels went up and I packed on another five pounds. I ditched the starch, and the weight is coming back down.

Why eating has to be so complex, so difficult? That is why I subscribe to simpler philosophy. Just eat real food cooked at home in great variety and that will take care of all your nutritional needs.http://optimalhealthsource.blogspot.com

I think that, for me, Heather came to MDA asking for advice, and then didn’t take it, and then got snarky about it saying “well, it’s about finding what is right for the individual!”

Which is true, of course, and I have no issue (or fear) of fruit. I was also raw vegan for a short time (about 6 months), though not full on fruit, there were days where I would eat a lot of fruit and veg — obviously, pretty much my only foods. Then I got really hungry, so I started eating more cooked, and then went vegetarian, and then eventually primal/paleo. And, I’ve found a balance that works for me within the paleo framework.

I read the paleo science and information and decided that it made sense and I would *actually try it* not just “add some meat to my fruity diet.” I asked for help at MDA on how to actually try it, and guess what? I took that advice and it’s been great.

I just didn’t like the attitude. You want help or you don’t. If you don’t, don’t ask for it and then get cranky when it isn’t the advice you wanted.

Not sure at all where you’re getting the “cranky” and “snarky” from. Sometimes people are going to come to different conclusions about their own health and bodies, and that’s okay. Someone having a different approach or opinion than you is something you’re gonna encounter quite a lot in the health world, and you shouldn’t take this personally. This doesn’t take away from the health you have gained on your journey, and I wish you much luck with it!

I was just thinking of you, in fact, because this weekend at the market I bought some lovely mesclun greens – I was inspired by the advice you offered on my site about diversifying. Thank you!

When you disregard advice that you ask for (on your post on MDA, and — I assumed — implicitly in your blog), chalking it up as dogmatism — that is cranky. When you don’t like that someone characterizes you that way, and you in turn characterize them as “afraid of fruit” or “afraid of differences” or “taking it personally” or “too inexperienced to have noticed that there are differences in these health realms” — this is snarky. In both cases, it is also extreme hubris.

I’m glad that you are diversifying, but I really don’t care what you eat. It’s why I stopped reading your blog. It’s simply a food log, and I tend not to read people’s food logs. If you were looking for ways to tweak the paleo diet, or insight into how others do things and how it might help you improve your health (if you feel it needs improving), then perhaps I would have stayed on and participated.

But, you aren’t interested in that. You are interested in doing what you want to do, and keeping a food log about it. And that’s fine. I’m ok with that. I just have too much work to do running my own holistic health center (healium.co.nz), working with my private clients (15), and running my classes (yoga classes), as well as taking care of my family (2.75 yr old boy) while we move into a new house (by the sea), and preparing us — health wise — for winter (I do a lot of immune boosting work for our family this time of year).

So, don’t take it personally if I’m not interested in your food log. I’m glad that you are happy and healthy and finding what works for you. I just don’t have any extra time to spend on it. Instead, I’m reading blogs about decorating beach cottages.

If you don’t like what I gots to say, babycakes, then stop monitoring my website, stop commenting about me and to me. Move on. There are plenty of paleo bloggers who eat exactly the way you do, so why be concerned about little ol’ me?

If you give me advice, I am not obligated to take that advice, nor is anyone else. That’s life.

You response demonstrates my experience of you: cranky and snarky when someone isn’t praising you or telling you what you want to hear.

In this post, you are accusing me of not liking what you have to say and monitoring you. I am doing neither.

I don’t care what you have to say on your food log; I don’t care about anyone’s food log. I don’t read food logs.

This isn’t something to take personally, nor is it evidence that I “don’t like what you have to say.” There is a big difference between “not liking” and “not caring.”

I stopped reading your food log about 5-6 days ago, but my computer did open it when I was clearing out my history and book marks earlier this week. I like to declutter my history and bookmarks weekly.

In addition, I do read diverse blogs on diverse topics, so long as it’s a discussion, not mere reporting. I happen to read this blog monthly, and your email happened to be on here, and so I thought I would respond — lest you think I’m monitoring you by coming here, a blog that I’ve come to since last November.

Also, I have no expectation of anyone, ever, following my advice. But, I do expect to be treated kindly when that advice is rejected. I expect the person to go ‘you know, that was interesting, but I really think/believe/feel that this is better.”

Instead, there were some broad brushstrokes about dogmatism, phobias, assertions that there’s a lack of experience, a fear of differences (or prejudice), that I was taking it personally, and now nasty accusations about disliking what you have to say and that I’m monitoring you, complete with a patronizing, demeaning term “babycakes” in the process.

So, when I read this blog today, I thought I would comment on my experience with you to the general audience of the blog, so that another well-meaning person won’t be drawn into the same experience.

and as it is, you succeeded in demonstrating *exactly* what my experience has been, so I’m sure they’ll avoid it.

Have you noticed that several substantial comments on her posts (none of them snarky or disrespectful, but some of them dissenting) have been deleted? Differing opinions aside, she is definitely not interested in real discussion. Most successful bloggers have thicker skin.

And honestly, is the food she posts about that interesting? Scrambled eggs, salads, and smoothies smoothies smoothies. There’s not really any cooking going on here, or any innovation. College kids make more interesting food than this.

Just wanted to follow up to triple-check that I’m not making an unfair accusation. Yesterday I saw several comments on fructose metabolism and fats on one of your recent days…honestly don’t remember which one…maybe it was more than one of them. All of those comments are now gone–I checked all those days again. They were there and now they are not. Either you deleted them or your website is malfunctioning.

Denise Minger takes a sledgehammer to the idea that paleo fruits were not sweet. She does it in her usual understated, “oh by the way”, “you might be interested to know” kind of way, but it is a sledgehammer nonetheless.

Very interesting piece with a lot of food for thought. Lots of fascinating fruits, with great pictures, are discussed.

She and I have come to so many of the same conclusions about diet, it’s unbelievable. Love her stuff. I hadn’t seen this newest entry yet about the wild fruits, but I am not surprised, because I know her diet incorporates a ton of fruit.

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I'm Richard Nikoley, and this is my blog. Free the Animal began by a different name in 2003, and as of 2016, contains over 4,000 posts and 100,000 comments from readers. I cover a lot of ground, blogging what I wish, from health, diet, and lifestyle to philosophy, politics, and social issues. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances in life.

Free the Animal really means to free yourself to reach your best potential in all areas of your life, learn from mistakes and successes, and move on. [Read more...]

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Elixa Probiotic is a British biotech manufacturer in Oxford, UK. U.S. Demand is now so high they've established distribution centers in Illinois, Nevada, and New Jersey.

Still, sell-outs happen regularly, so order now to avoid a waiting list.